The ‘Drop the Health Bill’ petition could destroy the NHS

The “Drop the Health Bill” petition is simplistic political nonsense. Dangerous simplistic political nonsense.

The Guardian quotes Dr Kailiast Chand saying: “I wanted people to get a simple message. This bill is about privatisation.” The Bill is a mess, it’s presentation has been woolly, and the amount of effort spent on building a coalition to support the changes has been woefully lacking. But it is not privatisation by the back door. If you want confirmation of this just speak to anyone at the Adam Smith Institute or Institute of Economic Affairs.

The petition is a greater threat to the NHS than the Bill. It ignores the fact that the current model of funding is unsustainable and doesn’t acknowledge that if the NHS is not reformed it will be impossible to ensure that we all get good health care free at source. If the NHS is not reformed then it – and possibly the country – will in the long-term go bankrupt. To pretend otherwise is pure Greek-onomics. When the NHS does go belly-up Dr Chand and his fellow GP chums will be ok as there will be enough private clients to pay their fees. It is those who can’t afford such costs who will suffer the most.

Public services are important. To thrive they must concentrate on achieving the best outcomes for all of us, and this means change. By all means have a debate about how this change should manifest itself but lets stop with the meaningless inflammatory gestures. We all want to save the NHS.

I have some sympathy with your point here Nick, but the government is just as at fault as campaigners. By insisting on legislation to change the system (rather than engaging with people actually within it), failing to explain what the point of their changes, then creating wholly contradictory explanations, they have created a binary debate. People can either be totally for the bill or totally against it without really knowing what the bill says.

Now there have been so many changes to the bill it will actually take reform backwards, with a commitment to no more private involvement in health than existed in 2010. Truly bizarre.

The best hope for the system would be for the bill to be dropped frankly, since it will hold back any reforms the system needs. Unfortunately, because the government have totally lost the debate around it, reform has probably already been set back for the next ten or fifteen years.

Nick- the whole pint is exactly as you say – if something isn’t done then the whole edifice will collapse. From the massively over generous GP contracts ( Labour inspired because they didn’t understand what it meant) to the hordes of statist managers who have no accountability and no understanding of where the money comes from, this total mess needs a complete overhaul. If it did collapse a la Greece at least there would be a blank piece of paper to work with

Given the coalition is now committed to a bill which prevents further reform, and Labour is now effectively the only party prepared to coutenance the changes you wish to see – does Mr Chanda’s affiliation really matter?